The Italian media connects Mormons and polygamy nearly every time it reports about Latter-day Saints. At least that's what research of Italian coverage of the Mitt Romney campaign and the airing of "Big Love" in Italy show, a prominent religious sociologist has found.

Writing in The International Journal of Mormon Studies Massimo Introvigne explores how groups are ascribed and labeled and how such labels die hard. He then concludes that incidents surrounding the importation of "Big Love" to Italy and coverage of the Mitt Romney show that many Italians and other Europeans still believe that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints practice polygamy.

Introvigne, is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New
Religions. The group will hold its annual conference in Salt Lake City in June.

Introvigne studied coverage of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign in the first seven months of 2008 (January to July) in fifty Italian daily newspapers and one hundred periodicals having a Web site. Of the articles, 99.1 percent identified Romney as a Mormon. At the same time, not one article mentions that Hilary Clinton is a Methodist.

Introvigne wrote: "More surprising are the data about polygamy. 473 articles (or 47.3%) mentioned that Romney's religion has something to do with polygamy, although 115 (11.5% of the total, and 24.3% of those discussing polygamy in connection with Romney) did some homework, and explained that Romney's Church is not actually polygamist. However, very few articles are entirely accurate on this point. Most would say that Romney belongs to "a branch" of Mormonism which is non-polygamist, or that polygamy has become "rare." 173 articles (or 17.3%) made some mention of Warren Jeffs, the events in Texas, and the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints..."

Along with the frequent links of Mormons and polygamy in media reports, Introvigne also found the Italian version of "Big Love" failed to correctly identify the LDS Church as strongly opposed to polygamy and instead attributed the stance to the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which now goes by the name Community of Christ. During the second season, Italian LDS authorities demanded the series identify the correct church, but producers still got the official Italian name of the church wrong.

Introvigne also found 93 articles (or 9.3%) which include sentences which are variations of "Mr. Romney has only one wife" where the media's readily assumes most Mormons practice polygamy and that Romney is an exception.

"It confirms that ascription and labelling are very long processes, and that the fact that most scholars of religion do know the basic facts about Mormons and polygamy does not easily translate into general or media awareness. Ultimately scholarly articles, press releases by the LDS Church, and even 'Big Love' (as far as parts of it are not lost in translation) will not change this situation. Only a significant presence of mainline Latter-day Saints in Italian and Central and Southern European social, cultural, and religious life will make the general public familiar with what 21st century Mormonism
is really all about. And perhaps persuade the media that it is not that unusual for a male Mormon politician to have only one wife."

In other media critiques, David L. Wilkinson, former Utah Attorney General, takes on media blunders in covering California's Proposition 8. In the conservative CNSNews.com he says the media misreported the amounted raised by both sides of the campaign, misreported about LDS Church official involvement in the campaign, and then misreported how proponents raised less money than opponents near the election and nearly lost the vote.